Palm Beach Nasty (20 page)

Two big, burly guys were on him in a second.

“Who are you?” one asked.

“Crawford, Palm Beach police.”

He saw Ward Jaynes on an elliptical machine twenty feet away. Sweat was flying off his face, his arms and legs pumping like pistons.

He saw Jaynes look over and give a nod to the two men. They backed away. Crawford walked over to him.

“Your usual M.O., Detective.” Jaynes wasn’t even breathing hard. “Show up uninvited.”

Crawford got closer. Five fit-looking young people—three men and two women—dressed in identical white sweatpants, sneakers, and tight white T-shirts stood in Jaynes’s orbit, like they were awaiting commands.

“Know why I just show up?” Crawford asked, a foot away from Jaynes now.

Jaynes slowed down. “I’m dying to know.”

“ ’Cause one time when I just showed up, I found a suspect burying a body in his backyard.”

A beautiful Asian girl handed Jaynes a bottle of water. Jaynes took a swig, then shot a scowl at Crawford.

“Sounds like a bullshit story to me.”

“I don’t do bullshit stories,” Crawford said, looking around. “This place puts any gym I’ve ever seen to shame. ’Course I go to places with medicine balls and fat, sweaty guys who grunt a lot.”

He looked around some more. Jaynes had to have a couple million into the place. A glass-walled squash court. A long, narrow pool with two lap lanes. No barbells or free weights, just sleek, silver machines, so glossy they looked wet. Every piece, he figured, was either brand new or cleaned and polished daily.

“So . . . I just came by to talk,” Crawford said, “get to know you a little better.”

“Aww, that’s sweet,” said Jaynes, putting on a burst of speed with his legs, like he was slashing through a defensive line.

The Asian girl handed him a towel. He mopped his face and forehead, then looked up at Crawford.

“So . . . All-America in lacrosse, three years on the Dartmouth football team, course . . . it
was
the Ivy League.”

“You do your homework,” Crawford said. “I’ll give you that.”

Jaynes had researched him just like some company he was about to short.

“I like to be informed,” Jaynes said, taking his hands off the elliptical and sitting up straighter. “It’s what I do.”

“I heard what you do is . . . hatchet jobs. Companies, people . . . you name it.”

Jaynes put his hands back on the elliptical and smiled.

“Only when they deserve it.”

“Not the way I heard it.”

“Well, then, someone’s got their facts screwed up. I do my homework, find out what I need to find out, then . . . act accordingly.”

“Is that what you did with Darryl Bill, acted accordingly?”

Jaynes ignored him and pedaled harder. Crawford couldn’t believe he wasn’t at least breathing heavily.

“A word of advice,” Jaynes said, finally. “I’ve been very tolerant of you, but I wouldn’t show up a third time thinking you can throw around accusations.”

“The third time I show up is usually when I make my arrest.”

Jaynes slowed down again, sweat dripping off his face now. He climbed off the elliptical machine and walked over to Crawford. He got almost nose to nose with him. Crawford smelled something stronger than sweat. He wondered if endorphins or testosterone had a scent.

“You ever box, Detective?”

“Couple times in college, why?”

“I got a ring over there,” Jaynes said, flicking his head, “how ’bout a little exercise, go a few rounds?”

“Are you serious?”

“Why not,” Jaynes said. “You’re probably ten years younger than me, plus being the big jock and all.”

“I got a much better offer from Hannah up at your house.”

“Come on, Detective, just a round or two. Fifteen-ounce gloves, nobody gets hurt.”

Crawford shook his head.

“They frown on me taking swings at taxpayers,” Crawford said. “Know a guy named Nick Greenleaf, Mr. Jaynes?”

“No.”

Crawford eyed him for a tell.

“Why were you at Lil Fonseca’s gallery the other day?”

“ ’Cause I like art . . . I like Lil, too.”

Crawford ignored that. “Talk to me about Cynthia Dexter.”

Nothing moved on Jaynes’s face.

“Can’t help you there,” he said.

“I think you can,” Crawford said. “We can talk in a room down at my station, if you prefer. You know, drink shitty coffee together?”

Jaynes turned and, on cue, the Asian woman thrust another bottle of water into his hand, like a nurse handing a surgeon a scalpel.

“How ’bout a little mano a mano target shooting?” Jaynes asked.

“What?” Crawford said, cocking his head.

“I got a shooting range, room on the other side of the pool.”

Crawford shook his head and smiled.

“You’re not too competitive are you, Mr. Jaynes?”

“Nah, just like to see who I’m up against. I’m gonna take a quick shower and get a massage. We can talk in my massage room . . . I’m not a big fan of shitty coffee down at your station.”

Jaynes walked away.

The Asian woman handed Crawford a bottle of water.

“Thanks, so tell me,” he said to her, “what do you all do here?”

“Well, John’s Mr. Jaynes’s trainer,” she said pointing to a husky guy with a shaved head. “Over there’s Mira, Tai Chi, and Terry . . . Pilates, Gual’s the masseur.”

She pointed to a huge man who looked like a Samoan Mr. T.

“And how ’bout you?”

“Water and towels.”

Crawford wondered if that was all. He walked around the gym, checking everything out.

Five minutes later Jaynes padded out in a thick white terry cloth bathrobe and sandals.

Gual, a square man with spiky hair and a barrel chest, came up to Jaynes’s side. His beefy hands dwarfed the tiny, gold Tank watch on his wrist. Jaynes didn’t introduce them.

Jaynes gestured toward a door.

“Follow me,” he said, “into Gual’s house of pain.”

Gual smiled. He had little Chiclets teeth.

Crawford followed Jaynes. Gual motioned for Crawford to go in before him. The room had thick, dark-tinted glass on two sides.

“Soundproof,” Jaynes said.

So Gual could jump him and start working him over with his gigantic hands, Crawford thought.

The room was surprisingly spartan, lit only by a circular overhead, hi-tech-looking fluorescent light. Crawford had never seen a bigger massage table. Figured it probably cost more than a midsized Kia.

Jaynes took off his bathrobe and flung it over a chair. He had a towel around his waist and turned toward Crawford, his posture military and square shouldered. Crawford noticed again how chiseled he was. He had slabs for biceps, more rectangular than round, but they were show muscles, not the kind you got from working in a field.

Jaynes climbed onto the table and lay facedown.

“The detective here,” Jaynes said to Gual, “thinks I did some horrible, unspeakable acts.”

Gual chuckled with something other than mirth.

“So go ahead . . . Detective, fire away,” Jaynes said.

Crawford suspected Jaynes saw this as an opportunity to show off his dazzling mind to one of his employees.

“Same question I asked before . . . what was your relationship with Cynthia Dexter?”

“Relationship? She was the goddamn bookkeeper at my club.”

“Assistant manager and social secretary.”

“Whatever . . . woman was a nosy bitch who played queen bee with the girls who worked there. Closet dyke is my theory.”

“That’s a little harsh, seeing how she just got murdered.”

Gual’s big fingers were digging in to Jaynes’s shoulders.

“Did I say I was happy she was dead, Detective?”

“I heard you had a thing with one of the girls at the Poinciana.”

Jaynes groaned.

“I got a thing for females, in general . . . so shoot me.”

Gual looked up at Crawford and smiled.

“What about that assault charge?”

Jaynes’s head turned slowly to Crawford, his eyes dark with menace.

“One hundred percent bullshit.”

“You know, that seems to be your mantra about things you don’t want to talk about. I heard you broke her collarbone.”

Gual shot Crawford a nasty look.

“One thousand percent bullshit,” Jaynes sighed theatrically, his eyes looking pitch-black in the dim light.

“What about Misty? The sixteen-year-old?”

“We already had this conversation.”

Then Jaynes pushed himself up, swung around and sat on the edge of the table facing Crawford. His muscles were taut, his forehead red and pulsing.

Then he smiled, retrieved his calm, serene look and turned slowly to Gual. “I want to be alone with the detective.”

Gual left quickly.

“Let’s talk the facts of life,” Jaynes said, after the door closed.

“Okay.”

“You’re the new guy in town. That’s obvious ’cause anybody who’s been around knows it’s a bad idea to fuck with me. Picture the following scenario . . . you take a nice all-expenses-paid trip down to the Cayman Islands for the weekend. You take along your little friend, Lil Fonseca, or maybe your buddy, Mort the fat cop. Then on Monday, all rested and relaxed, you go and meet with Mr. Alonzo at the Bank of the Caymans. He gives you a key . . . to a safety-deposit box.”

Crawford put his hand on his chin and nodded.

“Then what? I forget you even exist?”

“Or maybe, we become fast friends,” Jaynes said. “You know, fellow bachelors. You come over, use my gym, we box a little, go chase women afterward.”

“One big problem . . . I like ’em over sixteen.”

Jaynes sighed and shook his head.

“And two, I’m not really a big fan of Bangkok,” Crawford said.

Jaynes smiled and put his hand on Crawford’s shoulder.

“Charlie, Charlie, Charlie . . . what am I gonna do with you? You really like living in that dump of yours on Evernia Street, driving that Toyota beater to Dunkin’ Donuts every morning?”

Crawford took a sip from his water bottle and screwed the cap back on.

“You know, you remind me of some jock who just signed a $100 million contract. All bulletproof and invincible—”

“Come on, spare me, will you.” Jayne’s eyes hardened, his patience run out. “You’re so far out of your league, you just have no clue. To go with a sports analogy, it’s like a Triple-A farm team from Sheboygan up against the Yankees. So what I’m going to do for you is even it up, level the playing field a little—”

Jaynes took a step closer.

“And what I’m going to do is give you what every cop dreams of. I’m going to give you a full confession, Charlie, so listen carefully,” Jaynes said, and a demonic look spread across his face.

“I killed that kid. I strangled the little redneck at Mellor Park. He thought he was meeting me to get a nice, big, fat check. He had absolutely no idea who he was dealing with. It was so easy. And you know what I really liked about it? Watching the expression change in his eyes. And the sounds he made. You know what, Charlie . . . I liked it so much, I could even see doing it again.”

THIRTY-TWO

“N
o, Mort,” Crawford said into his cell, a few minutes after leaving Jaynes’s gym, “I think I can say with certainty, that in all my years in law enforcement, that’s the first time that’s ever happened.”

“So what happened after he strangled the kid?” Ott asked, tapping his foot on the floor and a pencil on his desk at the same time.

“He had everything all set up. After he strangled him, he called a guy, who called another guy, who called two guys, who went and hung him up on the banyan.”

“Ho-ly
shit.”

Crawford pulled over on the side of South Ocean Road. He was having trouble driving and concentrating on what he was saying.

Ott just kept tapping his pencil.

“He said he liked it, he wouldn’t mind doing it again,” Crawford said, getting out of his car and looking out at the green, murky ocean.

Ott tapped harder. The lead on his pencil snapped and, without a pause, he picked up another one.

“So what do we do, Charlie?”

“Well, I been thinking about that,” Crawford said, looking at an older woman pick up a seashell a hundred feet away. “I could go to Rutledge and say, ‘Guess what Norm, Jaynes confessed. Told me he did the kid, strangled him.’ And he’d say something like, ‘That’s great, Charlie, congratulations, you got him locked up?’ Then I’d go, ‘No, Norm, problem was he wouldn’t put it in writing.’ And he’d go, ‘Well, then, Charlie, it’s kind of worthless, isn’t it . . . you sure he told you?’ And I’d say, ‘I’m sure.’ And then he’d say, ‘So Charlie, why don’t you just trot him down to the station and put him in a room with Jeanie the stenographer. Think you could get him to do that, Charlie’? And then I’d go, ‘Ummm, probably not, Norm.’ And he’d go, ‘Well, then, maybe you better just forget this ever happened—if it did, that is—you know, keep this little story to yourself.’ ”

Nothing from Ott.

“You know, Mort, there’s only one way to play this,” Crawford said, looking out at a tanker a few miles from shore. “We don’t say anything about it to anybody. Especially Rutledge.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

“You understand why, right?”

“Yeah, I get it,” Ott said, “ ’Cause Rutledge’ll use it against us. Chumps couldn’t catch Jaynes even after he confessed. Or maybe spin it like you just made the whole thing up.”

“Yeah, exactly.”

Ott drummed his desk a few more times.

“This is really fucked up you know, Charlie,” Ott said. “Hey, let me ask you, did Jaynes say anything about—”

“Cynthia Dexter? Yes. That he had nothing to do with it.”

“You believe him?”

“I think so . . . but I’m not sure. I’m not sure about anything he says.”

Crawford watched the woman toss a shell back down on the beach.

“You know, Charlie . . . this guy’s a major-league freak.”

Crawford watched the woman put a towel down, sit down on it and stare out at the green, murky ocean.

“Fine line maybe . . . between a freak and a genius, huh Mort?”

“That’s profound, Charlie, very profound.”

THIRTY-THREE

F
ulbright and Donnie were in a redneck dive on Dixie Highway, just south of Lake Worth. Or Lake Worthless, as Fulbright called Donnie’s hometown, just to piss him off.